The Heroine

Sit amorous under an old oak decayed.
He (for blue vapours damp the scanty grass)
Strews fodder underneath the hoary lass;
Then thus, – O matchless piece of season'd clay,
'Tis Autumn, all things shrivel and decay.
Yet as in withered Autumn, charms we see,
Say, faded maiden, may we not in thee?
What tho' thy cheek have furrows? ne'er deplore;
For wrinkles are the dimples of threescore:
Tho' from those azure lips the crimson flies,
It fondly circles round those roseate eyes;
And while thy nostrils snuff the fingered grain,
The tinct thy locks have lost, thy lips obtain.
Come then, age urges, hours have winged feet,
Ah! press the wedding ere the winding sheet.
To clasp that waist compact in stiffened fold,
Of woof purpureal, flowered with radiant gold;
Then, after stately kisses, to repair
That architectural edifice of hair,
These, these are blessings. – O my grey delight,
O venerable nymph, O painted blight,
Give me to taste of these. By Heaven above,
I tremble less with palsy than with love;
And tho' my husky murmurs creak uncouth,
My words flow unobstructed by a tooth.
Come then, age urges, hours have winged feet,
Ah! press the wedding ere the winding sheet.
Come, thou wilt ne'er provoke crimconic law,
Nor lie, maternal, on the pale-eyed straw.
Come, and in formal frolic intertwine,
The braided silver of thy hair with mine.
Then sing some bibulous and reeling glee,
And drink crusht juices of the grape with me.
Sing, for the wine no water shall dilute;
'Tis drinking water makes the fishes mute.
Come then, age urges, hours have winged feet;
Ah! press the wedding, ere the winding sheet.
So spoke the slim and elderly remains
Of once a youth. A staff his frame sustains;
And aids his aching limbs, from knee to heel,
Thin as the spectre of a famished eel.
Sharpening the blunted glances of her eyes,
The virgin a decrepid simper tries,
Then stretches rigid smiles, which shew him plain,
Her passion, and the teeth that still remain.
Innocent pair! But now the rain begins,
So both knot kerchiefs underneath their chins.
And homeward haste. Such loves the Poet wrote,
In the patch'd poverty of half a coat;
Then diadem'd with quills his brow sublime,
Magnanimously mad in mighty rhime.

'With my venerable parent, I now pass a harmless life. As we have no society, we have no scandal; ourselves, therefore, we make our favourite topic, and ourselves we are unwilling to dispraise.

'Whether the public will admire my works, as well as my mother does, far be from me to determine. If they cannot boast of wit and judgment, to the praise of truth and modesty they may at least lay claim. To be unassuming in an age of impudence, and veracious in an age of mendacity, is to combat with a sword of glass against a sword of steel; the transparency of the one may be more beautiful than the opacity of the other; yet let it be recollected, that the transparency is accompanied with brittleness, and the opacity with consolidation.'

I listened with much compassion to this written evidence of a perverted intellect. O my friend, what a frightful disorder is madness!

My turn came next, and I repeated the fictitious tale that Montmorenci had taught me. He confirmed it; and on being asked to relate his own life, gave us, with great taste, such a natural narrative of a man living on his wits, that any one who knew not his noble origin must have believed it.

Soon afterwards, he retired to dress for the theatre; and when he returned, I beheld a perfect hero. He was habited in an Italian costume; his hair hung in ringlets, and mustachios embellished his lip.

He then departed in a coach, and as soon as he had left us:

'I declare,' said the landlady to me, 'I do not like your cousin's style of beauty at all; particularly his pencilled eyebrows and curled locks, they look so womanish.'

'What!' said I, 'not admire Hesperian, Hyacinthine, clustering curls? Surely you would not have a hero with overhanging brows and lank hair? These are worn by none but the villains and assassins.'

I perceived poor Higginson colouring, and twisting his fingers; and I then recollected that his brows and hair have precisely the faults which I reprobated.

'Dear, dear, dear!' muttered he, and made a precipitate retreat from the room.

I retired soon after; and I now hasten to throw myself on my bed, dream of love and Montmorenci, and wake unrefreshed, from short and distracted slumbers.

    Adieu.

LETTER XI

This morning, soon after breakfast, I heard a gentle knocking at my door, and, to my great astonishment, a figure, cased in shining armour, entered. Oh! ye conscious blushes, it was my Montmorenci! A plume of white feathers nodded on his helmet, and neither spear nor shield were wanting.

'I come,' cried he, bending on one knee, and pressing my hand to his lips, 'I come in the ancient armour of my family, to perform my promise of recounting to you the melancholy memoirs of my life.'

'My lord,' said I, 'rise and be seated. Cherubina knows how to appreciate the honour that Montmorenci confers.'

He bowed; and having laid by his spear, shield, and helmet, he placed himself beside me on the sofa, and began his heart-rending history.

'All was dark. The hurricane howled, the hail rattled, and the thunder rolled. Nature was convulsed, and the traveller inconvenienced.

'In the province of Languedoc stood the Gothic Castle of Montmorenci. Before it ran the Garonne, and behind it rose the Pyrenees, whose summits exhibiting awful forms, seen and lost again, as the partial vapours rolled along, were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy fir, that swept downward to their base.

'My lads, are your carbines charged, and your daggers sharpened?' whispered Rinaldo, with his plume of black feathers, to the banditti, in their long cloaks.

'If they an't,' said Bernardo, 'by St. Jago, we might load our carbines with the hail, and sharpen our daggers against this confounded north-wind.'

'The wind is east-south-east,' said Ugo.

'At this moment the bell of Montmorenci Castle tolled one. The sound vibrated through the long corridors, the spiral staircases, the suites of tapestried apartments, and the ears of the personage who has the honour to address you. Much alarmed, I started from my couch, which was of exquisite workmanship; the coverlet of flowered gold, and the canopy of white velvet painted over with jonquils and butterflies, by Michael Angelo. But conceive my horror when I beheld my chamber filled with banditti!

'Snatching my sword, I flew to a corner, where my coat of mail lay heapt. The bravos rushed upon me; but I fought and dressed, and dressed and fought, till I had perfectly completed my unpleasing toilette.